Elixir (comics)

Elixir kills Stryker

The events of House of M leaves only 27 students with their powers, including Josh. Fearing their safety, Emma Frost orders the depowered students and staff, including Josh's guardian Danielle Moonstar, to leave the Institute.[12] A bus full of depowered students is bombed by anti-mutant zealot Reverend William Stryker, killing all on board. Josh is unable to heal his dying classmates in time, and becomes severely depressed and loses confidence in his abilities. Most of the remaining students take part in a melee fight organized by Emma Frost to determine who will be members in the new group of mutant heroes in-training, the New X-Men. Despite his non-combat powers, Josh makes the team.[13]

Caught up in his emotions over the deceased students, Josh hits a powered-down Colossus over the head with a metal beam during a training session. Furious, Emma temporarily kicks him off the team. Afterwards, Laurie is killed by a bullet fired by one of Stryker's agents.[14] Enraged over the death of Laurie, Josh uses his power to kill Stryker. This turns Josh's golden skin into metallic black and leaves him catatonic.[15]

When X-23 is mortally wounded and unable to heal during the final battle with Nimrod, Hellion rushes her back to the Institute with help from Emma Frost, who unlocks the part of his brain which controls his powers. Julian gives a motivational speech and gets Josh to move forward with his life. Josh heals Laura, which also turns his skin back from black to gold.[16] Shortly after it is discovered that a small part of black still remains on Josh's skin, moving from place to place. Josh states he could still kill but he will need to learn how to control his powers and use them only to heal.[17] He approaches Beast and asks him to teach him everything there is to know about human anatomy, physiology, and biology.[18]

Elixir gains Beast's advanced expertise in human biology from the Stepford Cuckoos.

Before the other students are teleported to Limbo, the Stepford Cuckoos help Elixir learn advanced science by taking information from the Beast's head and putting it into Josh's. This increases his power exponentially, allowing him to heal otherwise-fatal injures with a touch. He also masters his "black abilities" by being able to switch instantly from golden/healing to black/disease-causing.[19] He begins a romantic relationship with Loa.[20]

Due to Elixir being a "problem" to X-Force, X-23 contacts the Stepford Cuckoos to help Rahne and erase Elixir's memories of the team, by Josh's request. However, before his memories can be erased, X-Force is interrupted and sent on a mission. Elixir joins X-Force and receives a dark-colored uniform. He helps his new team capture Vanisher, creating a deadly brain tumor on his brain. Elixir later keeps X-23 from killing herself after she becomes infected with the Legacy Virus, and helps her get rid of it.[21]

Elixir is transported to the future, along with the rest of X-Force, by Cyclops in order to bring Cable and the mutant child back to the present. Once they arrive there Elixir is in a hysterical state over being unable to save his friends from the Leper Queen. When Vanisher is wounded by Deadpool, Josh heals him and later is led to Cable and Hope Summers.[22] During his stay in the future, Vanisher constantly tries to get Elixir to undo his tumor only to be turned down.[23]

Upon arriving in the present, Josh cures Nori and Julian but falls into a coma as a result of the strain. He is later sought out by Hrimhari when Wolfsbane collapses after a battle with the Frost Giants.[24] Upon arriving on Utopia, Hrimhari makes a deal with the Norse goddess of death, Hela, when he finds out Rahne is pregnant.[25] Unable to choose between his lover or his child to save, Hrimhari requests Hela heal Josh so that he can save Wolfsbane and their child. Elixir heals her by transferring some of her baby's strength to her to ensure that she can survive the pregnancy. He and X-Force teleport off to Genosha and once there he informs Vanisher that it's not the tumor making him sick as he removed it in their trip to the future but his stage 4 Syphilis.[26]

Elixir faces off against Wither in a fight to the death. Elixir shifts to his black form, then reverses the effects of Wither's powers, telling Kevin he is sorry before turning him to dust. In the aftermath of Necrosha, Wolverine states that Josh has quit the team, citing he is having difficulty shifting out of his black form.[27]

In the aftermath of the Death of Wolverine storyline, Elixir was captured by the same individuals that had captured X-23, Sabretooth, Daken, Lady Deathstrike and Mystique. As he was still stuck in his black form, he was unable to attempt to rouse Mystique after Sharp knocked her unconscious with the trigger words, however this proved to be unnecessary as Mystique had already recovered and was just feigning unconsciousness. When Siphon attacked the group shortly after Elixir tried to use his killing powers to stop him - however these had no effect and Josh was quickly overwhelmed. X-23 insisted that they needed to help, but Sabretooth refused and demanded Sharp release them. Sharp, his team, and the captives then scattered to escape.[28]

Elixir later appears as a member of the Utopians alongside Karma, Madison Jeffries, Masque, Random, and Tabitha Smith.[29]

Elixir later resurfaces, having joined a church group to help find himself, when he's tracked down by Sabretooth and M who feels he might be targeted by someone killing mutant healers. While there, the group is attacked by the Dark Riders, and most of the church volunteers are slaughtered. While M and Sabretooth are busy fighting the Riders, Josh begins healing the volunteers en masse, but it was a trap to lure him out and he is shot and killed by Gauntlet.[30]

Because of the nature of Josh's powers, he does not remain dead for long, regenerating in his grave before making his way back to Genosha. Emotionally and mentally unstable as a result of his experiences, he tests his expanding powers by torturing the Dark Riders, resurrecting them and killing them over and over again. Magneto and his team learn about his survival and track him down, eventually taking him to one of the medical centers where mutants are being treated for M-Pox. Josh is able to completely heal the mutants there, but the rush of destroying the disease ravaging him leads him to nearly drain the life from the human medical personnel, and then the X-Men when they tried to stop him. They are able to reach and stop him. Josh is taken to Xorn's retreat, in hopes the mutant can help Josh come to terms with the tragedies, and gain control of his powers.[31]

Soon afterward he is approached by Exodus and together both travel to the Savage Land where Magneto has been fatally stabbed by Psylocke. Elixir heals Magneto anew but the master of magnetism declines their invitation to join them, and tells them he must remain "dead" for the sake of mutantkind. Elixir and Exodus then teleport to parts unknown.[32]

Elixir and Exodus were later approached by Magneto in order to help contain the Mothervine virus, an aggressive and wildly unstable biotech enhancement tailored to engineer mutant childbirths but that also triggered secondary and tertiary mutation within mutants as well as re-trigger primary mutations in depowered mutants who lost their powers on M-Day, which was released worldwide by Miss Sinister, Havok, Emma Frost and Bastion. As Exodus teleported the trio to each Mothervine impact zone, Magneto patrolled the sites for dangers as Elixir managed to cure most people affected by the Mothervine bombs, except for those that already carried a dormant X-Gene. When Elixir was taken to the masterminds' base, he neutralized all samples of the Mothervine serum and even purged it from Jimmy Hudson's system, putting an end to the Mothervine threat once and for all. He also healed Havok's scars sustained during the Planet X.[33]

When Professor X uses Krakoa as the home for the new mutant nation in the Pacific Ocean east of Papua New Guinea, Elixir is revealed to be part of a group known as "The Five" which is made of five specific individuals whose purpose has a significant ramifications going forward for the X-Men's survival in general. Besides Elixir, The Five is made up of Goldballs (Fabio Medina), Proteus, Tempus and Hope Summers, and they all have an important part to play in keeping mutants alive, as they are the ones responsible for the several resurrections that occurred off-panel. Through Goldballs' abilities to create golden orbs of matter which it is discovered aren't just orbs of biological matter, but eggs that he can create in limitless supply, allows Proteus, who can warp reality, to make those eggs viable. They next inject into those eggs, preserved DNA of a mutant, allowing Elixir to kickstart the process of cellular replication, paving the way for a mutant embryo to grow inside the egg. That process would take quite a bit of time of course, but Eva Bell is able to control time, so she speeds up the process. That's when Magneto explains that while each member of the group couldn't achieve these feats on their own, they have Hope's abilities to unify them and allow all parts to run at peak velocity and unison.

When David learns of a mental block within his head that prevents him from keeping the information he absorbs permanently, he asks for Emma Frost's aid in removing it. Working with Dani Moonstar, they show David a possible future outcome because of the mental blocks' removal. After leaving the Xavier Institute, David promises to help Josh find the full potential of his powers. Months later after establishing his own business, Josh is used to create a cure to both cancer and AIDS. Although successful, it comes at the cost of his life.[39]

In the House of M reality, Josh was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., serving alongside Agent Kevin Ford (Wither) as interrogator. Foley and Ford were in charge of "persuading" Cameron Hodge, a member of the Human Liberation Front, to reveal the location of his terrorist cell. Josh uses his power to "speed up the body's biological functions," and combined with Agent Ford's power, they are able to create a net effect that causes a part of the terrorist to die and then regenerate, which Foley describes as "quite painful". Before Ford and Foley begin torturing Hodge, Agent Noriko Ashida (Surge) interrupts them, prompting Ford and Foley to attack her. She incapacitates them both but Foley manages to use his power to rupture her blood vessels and cause her lungs to fill with blood.