Name

Current Alias

Aliases

NO! Fools! Release me now! You haveno idea what you are up against!

Origin[]

Bastion was "born" when the giant roboticSentinelMaster Mold, having absorbed the advanced Sentinel prototypeNimrod into its systems, fought theX-Men who saw no other way to stop the virtually indestructible amalgam except to force it through theSiege Perilous, a pan-dimensional portal which subjects those who pass through to the judgment of the universe's higher powers.^[3]

Re-emerging from the portal as an amnesiac Human/Sentinel hybrid with a seemingly immortal essence, he was taken in by a woman named Rose Gilberti. Living with Rose, she adopted him as a surrogate son and gave him the nameSebastion Gilberti. He began to hear aboutAmerica's mutant problem. At some point, Bastion fell in with anti-mutant groups, likeGraydon Creed'sFriends of Humanity.^[4]

Operation: Zero Tolerance[]

Bastion's prime directives were soon reawakened, and he began assembling the international anti-mutant strike forceOperation: Zero Tolerance (OZT). They attempted to reconfigure the Sentinel force assembled by Project: Wideawake, but Bastion deemed most of them outdated. Instead, he had a number of humans secretly outfitted with nano-technology to bePrime Sentinels.^[5]

AfterProfessor X voluntarily turned himself in after the events ofOnslaught, Bastion confined him in an OZT facility along with the artificially-created mutantMannites. Bastion also killed aDaily Bugle reporter who was going to report on Graydon Creed's history.^[11][12] He then capturedJubilee.^[13]

Soon after, Bastion put OZT into full effect, utilizing the Prime Sentinels and quickly capturing several X-Men members. Bastion took control of theXavier Institute and accessed Xavier's files in search of the Xavier Protocols, despite opposition fromCable andCaliban ofX-Force.^[5][14]

The captured X-Men and Jubilee ultimately managed to escape. OZT was shut down by the U.S. government afterHenry Peter Gyrich andSenator Robert Kelly asked the President of the United States to intervene.^[15][7]

Bastion was remanded intoS.H.I.E.L.D. custody, but he escaped and returned to the former OZT facility. There, he absorbed the energy from the Master Mold unit with which he had created the Prime Sentinels and sought to transformMachine Man into the Sentinel Supreme. He was opposed by Cable, and seemingly destroyed.^[16][4]

Bastion survived and was recaptured by S.H.I.E.L.D.Death was sent to kill the Mannites, but also attacked Bastion, leaving only his head intact.^[17]

Bastion's head was recovered by the robotic Gatekeeper servants of thetechno-organic beingMainspring. Bastion co-opted one of the Gatekeeper's bodies, and used it to attack the techno-organic heroWarlock and his allies, being eventually defeated. Bastion's head was later recovered by Mainspring, who stripped away the layers of his 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 intoTemplate. 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 managed to destroy the Babel Spire.^[18]

Bastion's head was later retrieved by U.S. government agents in order to access the information he had stolen from Xavier's files. The information was retrieved byShadowcat, Wolverine, andGambit, but not before Bastion attempted to sow mistrust among them by confronting them with misleading holographic scenarios. Although they got the files, the X-Men were showing signs of doubt within themselves and their team.^[19]

X-Force[]

After the events of theMessiah Complex, thePurifiers infiltrated a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility with the help of double agents and stole Bastion's head, reattaching it to a Nimrod's body. Once online, he alerted the Purifiers to the presence of the mutant teamX-Force in their church.^[8] After their escape, Bastion realized there was no terrestrial force that could destroy the X-Men and finally eliminate the remaining mutant population, so he created one by capturing some of the prominent enemies of the X-Men and resurrecting others that had been dead. He took control of them by implanting them with the techno-organic virus ofMagus.^[20] After that, he faced a coup d'état fromMatthew Risman and his Choir, while also contending with the X-Force team which had followedArchangel, who sensed his stolen wings within the Choir. Bastion fought Wolverine, but calculated that the risk was too high to fight him directly and escaped with the resurrected X-Men enemies.^[21]

Second Coming[]

As part of Bastion and theHuman Council's plan to kill theMessiah Child and destroy mutantkind, when Cable and Hope returned to the present, Bastion orderedWilliam Stryker's Purifiers, theLeper Queen'sSapien League, andCameron Hodge'sRight Smiley Faces to kill them. To cripple the X-Men he ordered his underlings to target their teleporters and destroy all transports on the X-Men'sUtopia base. A large dome appeared over theBay Area to cut off the X-Men from escape or help. Once the dome was activated, Bastion opened a dimensional portal to hishome reality to bring in more Nimrod-Series Sentinels.^[9]

Like the original Nimrod, these Sentinels were able to detect, analyze and adapt to mutant powers, as well as self-repair. The X-Men were barely able to subdue them, and several X-Men sustained severe injuries.^[22] Every five minutes a wave of five new Nimrod Sentinels continued to appear through the portal.^[23] Only by sending X-Force, Cable, andCypher into the future to reprogram the signal and destroy the NimrodMaster Molds were the X-Men successful in defeating them.^[22][24][25] Deciding that he would end the problem himself by killing Hope personally, Bastion attacked. Hope, filled by the rage of losing her father and the manifestation of her mutation, utterly destroyed Bastion and his dome in a single blast of tremendous energy.^[25]

Mutantkind's Savior[]

Unbeknownst to the X-Men, Bastion had managed to avoid death by escaping into the future. Severely damaged and with his systems compromised by the strain of time-travel, Bastion found himself in a future where mutants were still endangered, this time due to the toxicity of theTerrigen Mist permeating the atmosphere. Bastion realized that if mutantkind went extinct, he would lose his purpose, prompting him to decide to save them so he could perpetuate his utility function.

Back in the present, Bastion reprogrammed a group of Sentinels to help him carry out his new mission, and they soon started to refer to themselves as mutants due to their new programming. When his Mutant Sentinels were confronted bythe time-displaced original X-Men while aidinga new mutant who had emerged inBarcelona, Bastion had them captured and brought before him so he could try to convince them into joining his cause. However, the X-Men realized that Bastion simply wished to save mutantkind so that he himself could exterminate it, leading to a battle between the mutant team and the robots. Seeing the battle as pointless, Bastion fled with his Sentinels.^[26]

• Cybernetic Body: As a cybernetic life form he possesses all of the various superhuman attributes:
  • Superhuman Strength: His cybernetic body makes him inhumanly strong well beyond the human limit.^[29]
  • Superhuman Speed: As a cybernetic life form he can run and move at speeds that are beyond the physical limits of the finest human athlete.^[29]
  • Superhuman Durability: As a cybernetic life form his construction makes him very durable.^[29]
  • Superhuman Stamina: As a cybernetic life form he can exert itself well beyond the human limit.^[29]
  • Superhuman Agility: As a cybernetic life form his agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete.^{[citation needed]}
  • Adaptation: Like all sentinels, he can assess the particular mutant abilities of his adversary and then modify his internal and external mechanism to compensate.^{[citation needed]}

• Techno-Organic Virus: Bastion was exposed to the modified strain ofTechno-Organic Virus by the villainMainspring. With it he gained the ability to transmute inorganic matter into techno-mechanical material that he had complete and total control over.^[18]
  • Reanimation: He can also reanimate dead people by infecting them with the virus, as he did with several mutant-haters who formed hisHuman Council to aid in the extinction of the mutants.^[20]
    • Hive Mind: He can access the senses of those he infected with the virus, interfacing with their minds and thought processes. Everything they see he sees, and through this connection he can feed them necessary information or bestow them with computerized senses in order to utilize and asses strategic advantages.^[9]
  • Technopathy and Technoformation: As the end result of the merger between Nimrod and Master Mold, Bastion gained power to command and control computer systems and Sentinels. He also can reconfigure technological and mechanical objects, for example, use scrap metal and robotic parts to upgrade his body or reconfigure robotic bodies for himself by supplementing his head onto their chassis.^[30][8] He could cast his will into any and every form of machinery or anything his virulent substance infects.^[31]
    • Sentinel Creation: Bastion has the natural ability to create cyborg mutant killers calledPrime Sentinels using a nanite based conversion process.^[32] These powers were magnified many times over with the introduction of the T.O. Virus into his system, now he can create Nimrod-like Omega Prime Sentinels in those whom he's resurrected within his Council.^[25]
  • Appearance andShape Alteration: Bastion's technorganic frame has vast metamorphic capabilities, so much so that he could merge himself into any mechanical, cybernetic or techno mechanical substance he pushed his consciousness through. Changing anything or anyone else around him along with his form at will. Through this he is able to assume his normalized and Nimrod forms at will.^[30] He can also generate new appendages and weaponry with a thought, such as missile pods generated from his shoulders.^[33][25]
    • Winged Flight: His transformation into a Nimrod based sentinel bestowed him with four techno-organic wings which he could use to fly and for defense.^[21][34]
    • Size Increase: Through his mastery of techno kinetic matter manipulation, he could easily change and adjust his mass and height to monolithic proportions by converting and absorbing transformed matter into himself.^[35]
  • Quick Self-Repair: The nanites in his body provides him a self-repair similar to aHealing Factor. It was vastly improved after he merged with Techno-Organic Virus.^[33][25]

• Energy Manipulation: Bastion had some modicum energy manipulation and casting abilities. A capacity which was only made stronger as he became a Transmode/Celestial Tech enhanced Nimrod series sentinel.^{[citation needed]}
  • Energy Projection: Able to shoot energy blasts from his hands^[29] and has laser vision he can fire from the eyes. During his final battle with hope, he showed he could project energy from his mouth as well.^[25]
  • Energy Shielding: Having been augmented through the Transmode Virus, he could project energy barriers of varying size and resilience. Once having erected a massive shield dome around the city of New York stretching from the bay area all the way to Utopia.^[9]

• Telepathic Immunity: It is also immune to psychic reading from telepaths.^[29]

• Time Traveling: With the resurgence of his Nimrod programming. Bastion could freely traverse the timestream to access the alternate timeline which part of himself hails from. He can also travel to alternate futures, this of course was accidental.^[26]

• Teleportation: Bastion has a natural ability to warp to and from different locations under his own power, even choosing who he takes along with him in the jump.^[26]
  • Portal Creation: Bastion had the power to open rifts to the alternate timeline where he originates from in order to summon more Nimrod Sentinels.^[9]

• An X-Men character namedBastion was first mentioned during theAge of Apocalypse inAmazing X-Men #2. Since that Bastion was a formerHorseman ofApocalypse, however, he likely had no connection to the post-Sentinel entity Bastion.

• Fantasy
• Sci-fi
• Marvel