QUICKSILVER

Pietro Maximoff’s lowest year began with three whispered words from his sister: no more mutants. Stripped of his speed in the House of M fallout, broke and suicidal, Pietro was carried to Attilan, the Inhuman city, to recover — and instead fixated on the Terrigen Mists, the sacred vapours that awaken Inhuman gifts. In Son of M #1–6 (2006), by David Hine and Roy Allan Martinez, he did what no outsider had dared: he stole the Terrigen crystals outright.

The theft bought him a stranger gift than the one he lost. Breathing the Mists let Pietro jump his body seconds, then days, then months into the future, meeting older versions of himself coming back the other way. He also dragged his young daughter through the Mists far too early, and fled to Earth swearing he would hand the stolen power to every depowered mutant who wanted it back.

Then the obsession turned surgical. After repeated exposures, Pietro forced shards of Terrigen crystal directly into the flesh of his chest and hands, as shown in Silent War #3 (2007), so that his touch alone could re-ignite a dead X-gene. The restored powers came back warped and unstable, some of them lethally so — and the Inhumans declared war over the theft, while Crystal annulled their marriage. Pietro later tried to blame the whole spree on a Skrull impostor, a story he eventually admitted was a lie.