Bastion is introduced as Sebastion Gilberti, a mysterious man who had risen to power in a relatively short time in the U.S. Government and began assembling the international anti-mutant strike force Operation: Zero Tolerance (OZT). When the X-Men learned about the existence of OZT some months before the operation became public, Jean Grey and Gambit (acting on information) snuck into an OZT meeting being held at the Pentagon to learn more about the program and its leader Bastion, but did not come out with much. Bastion showed that he was more than met the eye as Grey could not read his mind and Bastion easily identified the two X-Men hidden among representatives of various foreign intelligence agencies interested in supporting OZT.[2]
When Professor X voluntarily turned himself in after the Onslaught event, Bastion confined Professor X in an OZT facility along with the artificially-created mutant Mannites, taking control of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. It also allowed Bastion to gain possession of the Xavier Protocols, a list of files containing information on killing the X-Men. Bastion also killed Daily Bugle reporter Nick Bandouveris who was going to report on Graydon Creed's history[3] and later Bastion himself succeeded in capturing Jubilee to take to the OZT base in New Mexico.[4]
As the OZT attempted to reconfigure the Sentinel force assembled by Project: Wideawake, Bastion deemed most of them outdated. Instead, Bastion was able to develop a new type of Sentinel, the Prime Sentinels. Graydon's death[5] was the last ammunition needed to initiate Bastion's OZT, which attacked mutants everywhere. The operation soon targeted and succeeded in capturing some members of the X-Men.[6][7]
Bastion also tried to buy off J. Jonah Jameson directly with all the available information he had managed to gather and decrypt on the outlaw X-Men and their associates. However, Jameson revealed that he had already been working on his own story for quite some time and invited Bastion to see what he had so far. When Bastion saw nothing, Jameson pointed out that Bastion had managed to ingratiate, intimidate, and dominate his way into a position of power in over a dozen countries. Yet there was no evidence of his existence. To Jameson, this meant the greatest story to follow was Bastion himself. He also implied that Bastion was behind the disappearance of Bandouveris and this meant Bastion would kill to keep his secrets. Jameson then burned the data disk and ordered Bastion out of his office, warning that he would see Bastion charged with Nick's murder.[8]
While in government custody, more mysteries surrounding Bastion were discovered, but before a further investigation could be made, he managed to escape and return to the home of his mother figure Rose Gilberti. But after the authorities accidentally killed Rose, Bastion flew into a rage and returned to the former OZT facility. There he found Cable fighting Machine Man who had lost touch with humanity. Bastion made contact with the Master Mold unit that helped created the Prime Sentinels, drained it of its energy, and transformed into a unit resembling Nimrod.[9]
This transformation allowed Bastion's memories to be unblocked, revealing that he had not been born human at all, but started life as two separate beings: the lead Sentinel Master Mold, and the highly advanced Sentinel Nimrod from an alternate future. While posing as a human construction worker, Nimrod unearthed a module from Master Mold. As soon as Nimrod made physical contact with the module, Master Mold's programming began to co-opt Nimrod's. Shortly after, during a conflict with the X-Men, the two of them, along with the X-Man Rogue, were blasted through the Siege Perilous, a mystical crystal capable of judging any who pass through it and reincarnating them into a new life commensurate in quality with their previous life. The Siege Perilous was responsible for merging Nimrod and Master Mold into a single being with no memory of his past. Bastion was eventually found by Rose who took him in and taught him human kindness. However, unbeknownst to him, when Bastion began to hear about America's mutant problem, his mutant-termination directives were re-activated. He abandoned Rose and sought out the high-profile Friends of Humanity. After regaining its identity as a Sentinel, Bastion attempted to lead another crusade against mutants by turning Machine Man into a Sentinel Supreme, but Machine Man and Cable were able to defeat him.[10] He was returned to government custody, only to be killed by Apocalypse's Horseman of Death.[11]
Template
Bastion's remains were eventually found by a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Mainspring who headed a project called the Gatekeepers, whose goal is to study and destroy Phalanx technology. Bastion was, however, able to co-opt and integrate itself with one of the Gatekeeper's bodies and used it to attack the techno-organic hero Warlock and his allies, being eventually defeated.[12] Mainspring was able to strip away the layers of Bastion's programming to reveal the original Master Mold's source code and, using the alien transmode virus he was infected with, rewrote Bastion's programming, transforming him into Template.[13] The virus soon took complete control of Template and forced him to construct a Babel Spire on Earth to signal the alien Technarchy. To oppose them, Mainspring destroyed himself along with Template, while Warlock and Wolfsbane managed to destroy the Babel Spire.[14]
Sometime later, Carol Danvers contacted the X-Men about the current whereabouts of the remains of Bastion/Template. The X-Men sent Shadowcat, Wolverine and Gambit to break into the government facility, intending to reclaim their stolen computer files. While there, Template showed the three X-Men false holograms of events and lies about their teammates. The X-Men eventually got their files, but they were left with doubts and fears about their teammates.[15]
X-Force
Following the events of the Messiah Complex event, the fundamentalist Purifiers assaulted a heavily defended SHIELD installation, breaching the tight security with the aid of several double agents within the organization and recovered Bastion's head. At one of their churches, the Purifiers attached the head to the body of the Nimrod unit recovered from Forge's Aerie, returning Bastion to life. Immediately after his activation, the mutant-hunting robot alerts the Purifiers to the presence of the new X-Force.[16] After accessing Nimrod's database, Bastion concludes that the X-Men are the greatest mutant threat to the Purifiers' objectives in this timeline or any other and that there is no terrestrial force in existence that could guarantee the elimination of the X-Men. However, he reveals that he has found something that could: Magus.[17]
It was later revealed that what Bastion discovered at the bottom of the ocean was not the real Magus, but one of his offspring in a mindless state. Bastion rewrote its programming and infected Donald Pierce and the Leper Queen, the recovered techno-organic remains of Cameron Hodge and Steven Lang, as well as the corpses of Bolivar Trask, Creed, and Reverend William Stryker with the Technarch transmode virus, declaring them to be the future of humanity and the end of mutantkind.[18]
His first move was to capture several mutants and inject them with a strain of the Legacy Virus to cause their powers to go berserk and kill themselves and thousands of humans. This would compel the United Nations to form a Mutant Response Division, which is successful, despite X-Force's efforts.[19]
Bastion also had Pierce act as his mole inside the X-Men's headquarters, all the while building several structures that surround Utopia.[20]
During the "Dark Reign" storyline, Quasimodo analyzed Bastion for Norman Osborn. While claiming that Bastion's current programming makes him difficult to sway, Quasimodo states that would be a beneficiary tool if they can find a way to bypass his Prime Director.[21]
Bastion is the primary antagonist in the X-Men: Second Coming storyline. He is seen with Lang, Hodge, Trask, Stryker, and Creed, stating that their forces are assembled and at his disposal. Bastion tells them that the Mutant Messiah has returned and gives them orders to kill her.[22] Later, Bastion attempts to kill Hope on his own, but he is confronted by Rogue and then severely damaged when Nightcrawler sacrifices himself. When rebooting, Bastion takes on much of Nimrod's old appearance, but is finally destroyed when Hope manifests a variety of the current X-Men's mutant powers and obliterates him.[23]
X-Men: Blue
Despite his apparent destruction, Bastion had survived the attack by activating, at the last second, his temporal drives and shunted himself into the future. However, Bastion had suffered catastrophic damage from Hope's assault and the time-shift had corrupted and compromised his systems. Arriving when mutants were being faced with extinction due to the Terrigenesis cloud, Bastion decided to re-dedicate himself to protecting mutants, assembling, and reprogramming a wave of standard sentinels. He eventually returned to the present and was soon confronted by the time-displaced X-Men which confirm that Bastion's actual goal is simply to preserve mutants until their population rises to a level where he can destroy them all himself. The team try to fight him but Bastion instead just left them and retreat with his Sentinels.[24]
In the aftermath of Hydra takeover of the United States of America under the leadership of the Cosmic Cube-altered Captain America, Bastion seemingly started to work with Miss Sinister, Emma Frost and Havok to use Mothervine on a global scale.[25] Bastion went with Havok to take control of an army of Prime Sentinels; since his programming was unrecognizable by them, they identified him as a threat despite his role in their creation. Bastion continued to survey the development and growth of the Mothervine to continue mutant repopulation, much to the chagrin of Frost.[26] After Sebastian Shaw failed in his attempt to kill Magneto to gain a role in the Mothervine plot, Bastion was present to negotiate with and later fight the Master of Magnetism, simultaneously unleashing a wave of Prime Sentinels to finally release Mothervine under Havok's order; Magneto was able to escape by using a vial of Mutant Growth Hormone and throwing a lighthouse at the group, fleeing in the chaos.[27]
Thanks to Bastion's efforts, both humans and mutants began to experience accelerated mutations through exposure to the Mothervine.[28] A group of mutants, led by Polaris, managed to infiltrate the Mothervine group's hideout once Mothervine was already active, with Bastion detecting their presence and alerting the rest of the group; Bastion incapacitated the daughter of Magneto when Polaris refused Havok's offer to join them, and they were imprisoned as a result.[29] The traitorous Frost, disillusioned by the Mothervine plot, freed Polaris and her team after overseeing an experiment by Miss Sinister on Jimmy Hudson, and they made their way to the inner circle's meeting room. At this point, Magneto had discovered the mutant Elixir who was capable of reversing the Mothervine mutations and was taken across the world to stop the rampancy, to the notice of Havok and Bastion. Emma and Polaris managed to break into their meeting, and Bastion began fighting them off. Ultimately, he was caught off-guard by the arrival of Xorn who absorbed him into a wormhole and seemingly destroyed them both.[30]
Genosha is a fictional country appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is an island nation that exists in the Marvel Universe and a prominent location in the X-Men comics. The fictional nation served as an allegory for slavery and later for South African apartheid before becoming a mutant homeland and subsequently a disaster zone. The island is located off the southeastern African coast northwest from Seychelles and northeast of Madagascar. Its capital city was Hammer Bay.
The Sentinels are a group of mutant-hunting robots appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are typically depicted as antagonists to the X-Men.
The Brotherhood of Mutants is a fictional group of mutants appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Brotherhood are among the chief adversaries of the X-Men.
Magneto is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The X-Men #1 as an adversary of the X-Men.
Havok is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, commonly in association with the X-Men. He first appears in The X-Men #54, and was created by writer Arnold Drake and penciller Don Heck. Havok generates powerful "plasma blasts", an ability he has had difficulty controlling. One of the sons of Corsair, he is the younger brother of the X-Men's Cyclops, and the older brother of Vulcan. He often resents Cyclops's authoritarian attitude and reputation as a model member of the X-Men.
Polaris is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Jim Steranko, the character first appeared in The X-Men #49. Lorna Dane belongs to the subspecies of humans called mutants, who are born with superhuman abilities. She can control magnetism in a manner similar to her father Magneto. The character has been known as Polaris, Malice, and Pestilence at various points in her history. Dane has also been a member of the X-Men and the X-Factor.
Cypher is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character appears usually in the X-Men family of books, in particular those featuring The New Mutants, of which Cypher has been a member. He is a mutant with the ability to easily understand any language, whether spoken or written.
Master Mold is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics most commonly appearing as an enemy of the X-Men.
Nimrod is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #191, and was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Romita Jr.
The Marauders refers to one of two teams of fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The original Marauders team included mutant warriors and assassins employed by the X-Men's enemy Mister Sinister, a mad scientist villain often intent on creating a perfect race of superhumans. At different times, the Marauders have been tasked by Sinister to perform kidnappings, assassinations, mass murder, or to simply fight Sinister's enemies. At different times, Marauders have been killed in combat, but often Mr. Sinister later uses his cloning technology to re-create them. This team of Marauders has appeared in many different stories of the X-Men franchise, as well as stories featuring other Marvel Comics heroes.
Prime Sentinels are an advanced type of fictional Sentinel appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are depicted as a humans-turned-cyborgs that uses nanotechnology from the "Days of Future Past" alternate future.
Robert Edward Kelly is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He most often appears in Marvel's X-Men related comic books. He is a prominent United States Senator who began his career on an anti-mutant platform and tended to be an antagonist to the X-Men team, but later began to change his views on mutants as a whole.
Bolivar Trask is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a military scientist whose company Trask Industries is well known as the creator of the Sentinels. He is also the father of Larry Trask and Madame Sanctity.
The Horsemen of Apocalypse are a team of supervillain characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Led by Apocalypse, they are loosely based on the Biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation, though its members vary throughout the canon.
"Operation: Zero Tolerance" was a crossover storyline that ran through Marvel Comics' X-Men related titles during 1997. The story followed from the "Onslaught Saga" and focused on individuals, including Bastion and Henry Peter Gyrich, within the United States government and their attempts to use their positions to hunt and kill all mutants across the country. Within the story, the program is known as "Operation: Zero Tolerance".
Cerebro's X-Men are a team of supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are a nanotechnology version of the X-Men created by Cerebro when the supercomputer briefly goes rogue.
The Purifiers, also known as the Stryker Crusade, are a fictional paramilitary/terrorist organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are usually depicted as enemies of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson, they first appeared in the 1982 graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills.
"X-Men: Second Coming" is a crossover storyline published by Marvel Comics that runs through most of the X-Men comic books from March to July 2010.
Jimmy Hudson is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character appears in the Ultimate Marvel universe and is the son of Ultimate Wolverine. After the Secret Wars, he is now a resident in the Marvel Prime Universe.
↑ Brevoort, Tom; DeFalco, Tom; Manning, Matthew K.; Sanderson, Peter; Wiacek, Win (2017). Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History. DK Publishing. p.283. ISBN978-1465455505.
1 2 "Bastion Voices (X-Men)". behindthevoiceactors.com. Retrieved April 24, 2024. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
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