A sentient bacteria, Sublime arose during the first manifestation of life on Earth. With the rise of multicellular life forms, Sublime had endless hosts to infect and control; however, in modern times, Sublime saw mutant-kind’s evolution as the first real threat to its eternal dominion and sought to prevent mutants from becoming the dominant species. It took a human host in Dr. John Sublime, a scientist employed by the Weapon X project that created the living weapon Wolverine. Moving on to the parent Weapon Plus project, creators of anti-mutant Super-Sentinels, Sublime eventually headed the entire program and sponsored a new Weapon X project led by Malcolm Colcord, who sought revenge against Wolverine for having savagely scarred him. Sublime also used a fortune gained from his host’s successful pharmaceutical company to found the Transpecies Movement, a cult of human “U-Men” seeking to empower themselves by grafting harvested mutant organs to their own bodies. He also penned a best-selling book entitled The 3rd Species outlining the U-Men’s philosophy.
After taking the Transpecies Movement public, Sublime purchased an old prison near Hong Kong whose sole inmate was the mutant Kuan-Yin Xorn. Sublime sought to transform the prison into a mutant organ farm, but its plan was thwarted when the X-Men were alerted to the situation by Xorn’s warden, Ao Jun. Sublime later met with X-Men Cyclops and Emma Frost, and used the living brain of mutant Martha Johansson to subdue them for harvesting. Sublime then ordered his U-Men to attack the X-Men’s home at the Xavier Institute to use it as an organ farm, but the X-Man Jean Grey defeated them. Cyclops and Emma escaped and confronted Sublime, whom Johansson telepathically forced to fall from the building, killing its human host. Taking a new host, Sublime rewrote their DNA to match John Sublime’s and set about replicating a part of itself to create the aerosol drug Hypercortisone-D, a.k.a. “Kick,” which enhanced mutant powers while causing violent insanity. As Kick, Sublime compelled student Quentin Quire to cause a riot at the Institute and incited Xorn to launch an all-out attack on New York as Magneto.
Later, the Weapon X program’s newest agent, Chamber, assassinated Sublime’s human host, but it simply took on another host body and altered its DNA to become John Sublime once more. The former Weapon Plus agent Fantomex subsequently teamed with Weapon X’s Agent Zero and Wolverine in confronting Sublime, though Sublime’s U-Men forced the trio to retreat. Sublime later posed as Megacorp head Michael Grand to obtain a new breed of genetically-enhanced super-beings created by Mister Sinister to use in an army to oppose Weapon X. For a year, Fantomex killed many of Sublime’s hosts until, during one such attempted assassination, Sublime’s host body was instead killed by Chamber, and it chose Fantomex as its next host. Subsequently, thirty years into the future of at least Earth-5700, Sublime abandoned Fantomex and infected Wolverine, whose consciousness had been sent to the past of Earth-616 to the time of his initial escape from Weapon X. Sublime infected Wolverine’s past body to ensure he scarred Colcord, setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to the future decimation of mutant-kind. Rejected by Wolverine’s healing factor, the Sublime bacteria then infected John Sublime, creating a temporal loop.
Note: Despite similarities, there is no known connection between Sublime and the cellular collective That Which Endures or the energy farmer the Harvester.
