Who the Morlocks are.
Who Are the Morlocks?
During the time in which Xavier is in seclusion to prepare for the Z’nox invasion (appx 10.5 years ago in our timeline, 1974) and therefore not searching for new mutants, a pair of mutants encounter each other in New York – Caliban and the woman who would become Callisto. Seeing the viability of the Alley in which Caliban resides as a viable living space Callisto prods Caliban to locate other mutants via his bio-empathic powers. In short order the pair locate and recruit Masque, Plague and Sunder. Masque offers to change the appearance of all of the others, a sort of communal initiation that marks all of them as being outsiders from humanity. This is when they adopt the name and cultural identity of Morlocks. This small group is a seed crystal around which a much larger outcast community would form.
Over the next two and a half years Xavier is still in seclusion and the Morlocks don’t have much competition when it comes to locating other mutants in New York. During this time the initial mutant quintet brings in four new members who all adopt the cultural ethos to one extent or another. These are Claymore, Hazel, Memento, and Healer. In many ways this group resembles the mutants that Xavier and Magneto fought over early in the X-Men book, such as Blob and Unus – older, already outsiders to normal society, and far from the fresh faced early X-Men. None New Yorkers; like so many others they are drawn to the city to find new futures, hide in the anonymity of its teeming masses or have it as their first port of call in escaping elsewhere in the world. Often Callisto and Caliban were able to meet them as soon as they stepped off the bus or boat and usher them into the Alley.
Something to remember about the tunnels under NYC in the Marvel Universe is that they are weird. There are groups of homeless people worshipping thyroidal albino warlords, there are cults to Kali, there are holes into the Mole Man’s underworld, there’s the detritus of Atlantis’ various attacks on the city, and lord knows what else. The tunnels are in their own way as much of an alien world as the Savage Land or Nova Roma (to pick two other X-Men connected locations), and over the next six years of their existence the Morlocks explore them all. Along the way the small mutant group becomes the de factor leaders and defenders of many of the lost and homeless souls that reside in them. This includes bringing in six more mutants who either come from these strange societies or were recruited from the surface in their increasingly infrequent forays above. Of these we know of Specs, the Colonel and Mrs. P, and there are at least three more who have not yet been defined.
In 1981 Caliban ventured above alone and encountered Storm, Sprite, Dazzler and Spider Woman and developed a fixation with the teenage Sprite (who would eventually become Ariel). Caliban recently dropped hints that Ariel is the center of his ‘heartweb’, his term for the empathic linkage between mutants, but whether that’s his infatuated hyperbole or an actual fact is unclear. In any event that marked a new era of engagement with the surface world, an appraisal of the X-Men and Callisto’s sleep deprivation driven, short term infatuation with Angel. Is kidnapping brought the Morlocks and X-Men into conflict, but their relationship has become more cordial over the last nine months, with members of each community offering help and assistance to the other.
Also over the last two years the growth in mutant appearances has led to a boom in young Morlock mutants – at first there was just Leech (who joined a little under 3 years ago) and Mrs. P’s daughter Aviary, but now there six more – Shuffle, Komodo, Harvey, Aztec, Miss Scarlett and Ursus (who, while not technically a mutant he is still a super-powered teenager and falls into the same category). All of these could do with some education in using their powers.
Currently Storm is the de jure ruler of the Morlocks while Callisto remains their de facto leader. Colossus bridged that gap as Storm’s appointed viceroy who also happens to be sleeping with Callisto. With Storm’s current position in Genosha it is unlikely she is interested in maintaining any control of the Morlocks.
