White Bishop / Gideon (Earth-2299)

Early Life Gideon was born in Spain during the 15th century. He became a member of the first expedition led by Christopher Columbus in 1492, aboard the Pinta, but succumbed to scurvy. However, Gideon recovered as they reached the New World, his nature as a mutant External allowing himself to be resurrected.

16th to the 19th Century

Although his subsequent history remains largely unknown, over the course of the next several hundred years, he became quite wealthy and discovered other Externals like himself.

20th Century

In the 20th Century, Gideon studied at Harvard University but was expelled under circumstances to be revealed. He went on to build his company, Ophrah Industries, into a corporate giant, intending to use his ever-growing financial power to dominate the world.

Modern Era

Gideon first came to public notice when he began forging alliances between high-tech industrial consortium's, such as GeneTech and the Taylor Foundation, and with powerful mutants or secret organizations such as A.I.M. He was known to have formed an alliance with the Toad, who was leading the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at the time, in a scheme to recreate the menace Proteus.

A long-time family friend of the DaCosta family, he erroneously believed the young Roberto DaCosta (secretly the hero Sunspot) to be the next immortal that the Externals had been looking for. Gideon manipulated events to have DaCosta's father killed and Roberto to take over the role as leader of the DaCosta’s family company. Gideon positioned himself as DaCosta's mentor, taking him away from his role in the team of New Mutants and into Gideon's confidence.

Gideon kept his power a secret, preferring to work behind the scenes. However, the New Warriors, when investigating criminal links of the Taylor Foundation, caused Gideon to reveal his mutant powers and sadistic temperament. He soundly defeated them.

When it was discovered that Cannonball was the mutant Gideon was searching for, Gideon abandoned DaCosta, subjecting him to vicious experiments until he was later rescued by the New Mutant's later incarnation, X-Force.

Surprisingly, Gideon sent a distress call to X-Force after being betrayed by the External Selene. For reasons of her own, Selene was suddenly killing the remaining members of the Externals, absorbing their life forces. Despite the efforts of X-Force, Gideon was the first External to be killed by Selene when she drained him of his life energy.

His remains were taken by his assistants of Ophrah Industries to sit and gestate in a containment capsule at Black Canyon, Gunnison National Park. Cable and his team eventually came looking for Gideon when Externals started dying left and right. A future version of Gideon (from thousands of years later after delaying his recovery) was responsible for the murders, and defended his present self's recovery.

Hellfire Club

Gideon was seen healthy again and recovered its mutant powers thanks to the evolutive isotope of the High Evolutionary. He was unfortunately no longer an External having lost his gift of immortality but now he had the mutant power to simultaneously mimic the powers of up to twelve different mutants or superhumans. He joined the inner circle of the Hellfire Club as White Bishop to regain everything he lost and woe to that that gets in his way.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Rapid Healing: As part of his own natural genetic mutation, Gideon is ability to endure injuries (within unknown limits) without lasting harm or seemingly feeling much pain, he could apparently regenerate injured or missing cells from even near-fatal injuries. However, Gideon could fully regenerated such tissue by temporarily absorbing the abilities of a being that possessed a sufficiently developed healing factor.

Power Mimicry: Gideon possess the ability of Super Human Enhancement Assimilation: the power to temporarily endow himself with the super powers of any beings in his proximity, whether they are a superhuman, android, or mechanical battlesuit. He scans and replicates his target's energy signatures and genetic templates, granting him a full understanding of the potential applications of the powers he acquires and enabling him to overwhelm an opponent with a superior mastery of their mastery of their own powers.

As a result of exposure to the evolutive isotope of High Evolutionary Gigeon gained the power to mimic simultaneously or separately the power of up to twelve different mutants and superhumans. At the moment he has mimicked the following powers :

The organic metal body that gives super strength and virtual invulnerability of Colossus.

The Magnetokinesis of Magneto.

A Super Speed of Quicksilver.

The Omega Level Telepathy of Professor X

The power to fly and generate bursts of solar plasma of Sunfire

The Super Senses Animals Hyper-Accurate of Wolverine

Hyper-Accelerated Healing Factor of Wolverine

The Optic Bursts of Cyclops

The power to convert ambient cosmic energy into bursts of highly destructive energy of Havok

The Energy Armor of Cecilia Reyes

The Telekinesis of Jean Grey

Super Animal Agility of The Beast

Gideon can at any time wish to replace any of these powers with any other he wishes but in that case he would only be able to use the power he abandoned after a month.

Psychic-Link: He shares a telepathic-link with his fellow members of Hellfire Club that allows them to not only sense each other and where, but when one rises from the dead and when one is killed by another.

Abilities

Gideon was an excellent combatant and had extensive training in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat.

Strength level

Variable. Usually, Gideon possessed the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engaged in intensive regular exercise.