Defense Strategy
Wisdom transferred to Black Air, a Ministry of Defense unit charged with recovering unusual artifacts for weapons research. Wisdom was one of their killers, though he tried to stick to slaying other killers, people “in the lifestyle.” For a time, Wisdom was partnered with Ed Culley, one of his few friends in Black Air. Wisdom was sent alone to Cold Grey, a fortress in British Antarctica taken over by terrorists armed with unusual technology; under orders, Wisdom slew everyone, but was haunted by memories of spilled entrails steaming in the snow. One of Wisdom’s old MI6 friends, Archimedes “Archie” Fogg, a research scientist, seemingly killed himself testing a new device to duplicate people’s neural patterns into a computer, but survived as a computerized brain; he designed an android body for himself, but before it was completed, Black Air installed him in the Faraway, an experimental satellite with a subspace engine. Wisdom promised Archie he would ensure he got his new body when he returned.
Wisdom built a network of friends in other agencies, including Pitman at MI5; MI6’s Doyle, whose life Wisdom saved when Doyle’s appendix burst; and Arthur Jardine, head of Criminal Intelligence, after he saved Jardine’s photojournalist daughter Amanda from gunmen. Alongside other Black Air operatives, including his then-superior officer, the voltcasting Lee Franks, AKA Scratch, Wisdom monitored a supposedly magical Scottish cairn. Unaware of their presence, members of fellow United Kingdom intelligence agency Weird Happenings Organization (W.H.O.) approached the cairn during war games with the X-Men. Not wanting any interference with their mission, Black Air (including Wisdom) slaughtered the W.H.O. agents, then fought the X-Men, but the bloodletting released N’Garai demons from the cairn; the Black Air agents worked with the X-Men to drive them back and destroy the cairn. Scratch and Wisdom, the only Black Air survivors, then escaped.
Wisdom subsequently posed as a W.H.O. agent to enlist Sean Cassidy, the X-Man Banshee’s help taking down Justin Hammer’s European Sentinel-like hounds operation. As his doubts grew about the people he worked with, Wisdom’s relationships with other Black Air operatives became strained; learning Scratch had slaughtered everyone in a remote Norfolk School while retrieving an alien artifact which had come down near there, Wisdom punctured Scratch’s lung and tore half his face off before other agents stopped him. Increasingly disillusioned, things worsened when Black Air took over for W.H.O. as British Intelligence’s paranormality specialists.
Things came to a head after Wisdom killed everyone at a terrorist training camp in Ronsaphan, Thailand. Vowing his killing days were over, he agreed to one final Black Air mission. His superior Michele Scicluna assigned him to accompany mutant super-team Excalibur to Genosha to find British-manufactured anti-mutant ammunition. Excalibur disliked the acerbic, chain-smoking spy, especially Kitty Pryde (formerly Shadowcat), ten years Wisdom’s junior. Instantly annoyed by his demeanor, she hid her attraction to him beneath verbal jabs at his faults, which Wisdom reciprocated. After Genosha, Wisdom returned with Excalibur to their base on Muir Island, Scotland; receiving a message from Culley begging for help, Wisdom asked to borrow Excalibur’s plane to get to London. Kitty piloted it, wanting to keep an eye on Wisdom. Finding Culley dead of an unidentified contagion, they followed the trail back to RAF Utterleigh, code-named Dream Nails, where Black Air was developing a stress-activated flesh-eating virus, Blood Eagle, extracted from alien bacteria taken from the Uncreated. Wisdom survived torture at the hands of Black Air telepath Jago Marrak, AKA Shrine, and with Kitty's help destroyed both base and virus, resigning from Black Air. Having seen through Wisdom’s facade, Kitty gave in to her attraction; Wisdom reciprocated, though he was terrified of being hurt again.
Kitty suggested Wisdom join Excalibur, and only a couple of days later they informed their teammates of their relationship; while the Excalibur women found the revelation romantic, Captain Britain and Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler, were less certain, but accepted Kitty’s choice after they warned Wisdom of dire consequences should he ever hurt Kitty. Later that night, Kitty’s superhumanly strong ex-boyfriend Colossus, arrived at Muir Island in time to see them kissing; already somewhat irrational, Colossus brutally assaulted Wisdom. Severely injured and barely hanging on to life, Wisdom used the last of his strength to down Colossus when he thought he was threatening Kitty. Wisdom narrowly survived and was confined to a wheelchair for three weeks; recognizing Colossus had been unstable at the time, Excalibur allowed Colossus to join them while they monitored his mental state. Kitty’s dragon friend, Lockheed, also disapproved of Wisdom and began stealing his suits and cigarettes.
After learning Black Air was helping the London Hellfire Club seize control of the UK, Wisdom’s insider knowledge proved vital in thwarting them; with Lockheed’s assistance, Wisdom also settled accounts with Scratch at the same time. When Jardine asked for Wisdom’s help finding Amanda, who had gone undercover to find a mutant serial killer, Kitty met Harold and Romany as Wisdom turned to them for their respective expertise. Shortly afterward, Captain Britain cajoled Wisdom into admitting to Kitty that he loved her; however, remnants of Black Air plotted to assassinate Excalibur. They sent Sari St. Hubbins after Wisdom, but he overpowered her and sent her back with a warning that if any of Excalibur went down, Wisdom would ensure Black Air went next.
Kitty was unexpectedly called away to S.H.I.E.L.D. temporarily, leaving Wisdom mid-argument. In her absence, Wisdom wondered if he was any good for her or Excalibur; she had helped him reclaim his soul, but he felt all he had done was endanger them. Kitty returned from S.H.I.E.L.D. hiding her guilt over nearly cheating on Wisdom; sensing she was shutting him out, Wisdom tried to talk to her about their relationship, but was interrupted when Nightmare attacked. Nightmare tried to play on Wisdom’s fear that he was making Kitty grow up too fast and she would one day hate him for it, but the dream lord found Wisdom unaffected, as he was already living that terror. With Nightmare driven off, Kitty admitted her indiscretion to Wisdom, but assured him nothing had happened; heartbroken and certain he was bad for her, Wisdom broke up with Kitty and left Excalibur. Soon after, the team disbanded and Kitty returned to the U.S.
Wisdom began working with other disillusioned intelligence operatives and techno-anarchists such as Abel, Baker and Charlie, trying to make up for the things they did during their service, cleaning up some of the dirtier spy secrets around the globe. Learning the Faraway had crashed near Genosha, Wisdom enlisted X-Force to help steal Archie’s brain before Genosha’s ruler Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, learned what he had in his possession, and Wisdom transferred Archie’s mind to an android Life Model Decoy.
Discovering his sister Romany’s agency was plotting to modify humanity to make them compatible with an alien World Engine, Wisdom approached Alistaire Stuart, head of a new agency responsible for British paranormal intelligence that had replaced both W.H.O. and Black Air, telling him of her plans. X-Force, having kept in touch following the Genoshan escapade, asked Wisdom if he could train them to be a more proactive force; after six months teaching them new uses for their powers, he took them to Russia to destroy Meatspore Stormtroopers, then to San Francisco to disable a Cold War bioreactor which was transforming the citizenry into murderous mutates. While X-Force was dealing with the bioreactor, Wisdom was confronted at gunpoint by its creator, Dr. Niles Roman; when X-Force returned to base, they found Wisdom’s corpse, seemingly shot dead; however Wisdom had survived and faked his death. Spurred by Wisdom’s seeming demise and guided by files he had compiled over the years regarding crimes against mutantkind, X-Force eventually faced Romany and her World Engine, which they destroyed.
Wisdom returned to British intelligence, working for Alistaire Stuart’s agency. When a capsule from parallel universe Earth-691 crash-materialized in Wapping, London, Stuart led the investigation into its origins, discovering it was an advanced scout for “Martians” who sought to expand their empire across the multiverse. MI6’s Clive Reston convinced Stuart only his larger agency had the resources needed to fight the invasion threat. Since Reston distrusted Stuart’s organization, expecting it to explosively collapse like all the prior British paranormal specialist units had, Stuart attempted to dissolve it; unaware why he was doing so, Wisdom and Joint Intelligence Chair (JIC) Mortimer Grimsdale resisted the closure, and ultimately Stuart transferred to MI6 while his former agency continued under new leadership. After Stuart’s departure, the agency was renamed in line with the other Security Services, becoming MI13, the department of the British National Intelligence Directorate Responsible for Enhanced Human Affairs.
When the mentally unstable reality-warping Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, depowered most of the world’s mutants, it caused widespread instability in the superhuman community. One of the few mutants to retain his abilities, Wisdom worked with several of his former Excalibur teammates to capture Earth-6141’s Shadow X, and became convinced the UK needed Excalibur back. He arranged for charges against reformed criminal Cain Marko, AKA Juggernaut, to be dropped, and ultimately convinced Captain Britain to reform the team in the wake of attacks by extradimensional Warwolves and Bran Bardic, AKA Albion, Reality-70518’s renegade Captain Britain counterpart.
Funded by MI13, the team confronted a resurgent Black Air and traveled back in time to prevent alien Kakaranatharan “dragons” from prematurely destroying Camelot; during this last escapade Wisdom unwittingly helped initiate Camelot’s eventual downfall when he drunkenly hit on Queen Guinevere, driving King Arthur’s upset wife into Sir Lancelot’s arms. When Juggernaut’s mystic patron Cyttorak tried to tempt him back to a life of destruction, in the process revealing to Excalibur the true extent of Cain’s past murderous villainy, the team considered expelling Cain; mindful of his own sins, Wisdom overruled them, but warned Cain that he would find out just what horrible things Wisdom was capable of if he let them down and gave in to his addiction for Cyttorak’s power. Determined not to fall prey to his own addictions, Wisdom quit smoking.
In the USA, a Super Hero “civil war” broke out over the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA); Wisdom and other prominent British heroes were consulted on a proposed UK version of the law, and registration in Britain became optional rather than mandatory, avoiding the violent opposition the American act encountered. While still operating publicly with Excalibur, Wisdom led a covert MI13 combat squad including aged WWII British super-soldier Captain Midlands, shape-shifting alien infiltrator-gone-native John the Skrull, dissident faerie Tink, and clairsentient Maureen Raven to Otherworld to stop a war with Otherworld’s faeries initiated by Tink’s father, the faerie king Oberon; at Oberon’s suggestion, the conflict was ended with Wisdom’s arranged marriage to Tink, forming a mutual defense treaty between the UK and Otherworld. Despite his newlywed status, Wisdom found himself increasingly attracted to Maureen and the pair began an affair; though an angry Tink soon discovered Wisdom’s indiscretion, she did not inform her father, unwilling to cause innocent deaths by restarting the faerie war.
Meanwhile, Reality-691’s Martians had empowered Ripperologist Jack Ransom to transport items interdimensionally; needing an anchor to fuse their dimensional gateway, the Martians chose Maureen, as a Martian precog had determined that in countless realities her son Jonathan was destined to lead resistance movements against them. Despite MI6’s attempts to keep Maureen and Ransom apart, the Martians established their interdimensional bridge, invading London; with Britain’s defenders fighting a losing battle, and no other way to repel the Martians, Wisdom reluctantly killed Maureen, sacrificing his lover to save the world. Leaving Wisdom, Tink returned home, while Wisdom returned to Excalibur.
After stopping Albion and his Shadow Captains from conquering the UK, Excalibur allied with the interdimensional Corps and Exiles to defend Otherworld from a temporarily insane Merlyn, the reality-warping Mad Jim Jaspers and his Furies army. Excalibur disbanded and Wisdom learned Kitty had been lost in space during an X-Men mission and was believed dead. With Brian’s wife, Meggan, missing since the House of M, he and Wisdom found common ground in their shared experience of losing loved ones. Although the cynical spy and idealistic hero had often found each other irritating previously, they gradually became friends.
Britain was soon invaded again, this time part of a worldwide Skrull incursion; Grimsdale was exposed as a Skrull infiltrator and the prime minister appointed Wisdom as MI13’s new head, drafting all British heroes for the duration of the emergency. The Skrulls invaded Otherworld seeking to commandeer Earth’s magic, but following Merlyn’s telepathic instructions, Wisdom opened the gateway to the dark realms, releasing Merlyn, his sanity restored, as well as numerous demons, including Satannish. Indebted to Wisdom by the laws of magic, Satannish offered Wisdom a boon; foregoing his chance to resurrect his loved ones or John, whom the Skrulls had executed, Wisdom had the demon cleanse the UK of Skrulls.
Aware the supernatural menaces he had released had designs on Britain, Wisdom reorganized MI13 to combat them. They captured the Duke of Hell, Plotka, when he attacked Birmingham, despite Plotka’s illusions offering them their greatest desires, which enticed Captain Midlands to betray the team; having sacrificed his own happiness so often for the greater good, an angry and disappointed Wisdom later unsuccessfully tried to convince Midlands to commit suicide rather than face trial.
After MI13 captured Norfolk wreckers who were luring alien ships to their doom, the vampire lord Dracula declared war on Britain. Realizing Dracula, a superb strategist, viewed the conflict like a game of chess, Wisdom cheated: learning Dracula sought to destroy his late foe Quincy Harker’s skull, enchanted to block uninvited vampires from Britain, Wisdom tricked Dracula into breaking a fake, ordered captured MI13 agents Julius Mullarkey, AKA Killpower, and Jacqueline Falsworth-Crichton, AKA Spitfire, to hide their immunity from Dracula’s control so they could infiltrate his army, then struck a deal with Plotka to temporarily trap Dracula in a dream realm, monitoring it to learn their foe’s plans. Dracula’s forces were devastated by the skull as they entered British airspace and on Wisdom’s orders MI13 attacked Dracula’s lunar base, finishing off the survivors.
Wisdom allied with mutant Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, against Borya Cich who desired MI13’s weapons, which led to Cich’s arrest. Later, Gambit died at Cich’s hands to which Wisdom killed Cich.
When Coven Akkaba started defending Britain after Betsy Braddock was named Captain Britain, Wisdom worked with them as part of his role at MI13. Though the UK cast mutants out, so Wisdom chose his fellow mutants in the coven, but they too betrayed him, murdering him in a sacrifice that released Morgan le Fay. On the sovereign island nation-state Krakoa where mutants lived and resurrected their kind, they brought Wisdom back from the dead. Wisdom soon asked for his former British Intelligence colleagues to be resurrected, ones who possessed psychic abilities thanks to their mutant X genes, and with them he reformed the S.T.R.I.K.E. Psi Division, a predecessor to Wisdom’s agency Black Air.
Wisdom and his S.T.R.I.K.E. team soon aided Betsy in defending the UK where anti-mutant sentiment was brewing, as well as from the Furies of the Everforge, Morgan le Fay and her Coven Akkaba acolytes. Though when Wisdom came into contact with Coven Akkaba, his anger towards them for their betrayal puts their mission at risk, nearly leading to a world war. But his Psi team kept his anger under wraps while their allies Betsy and Faiza Hussain defeated Morgan.
