Doug Ramsey

Cypher (Douglas "Doug" Aaron Ramsey) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

The character appears usually in the X-Men family of books, in particular those featuring The New Mutants, of which Cypher has been a member.

He is a mutant with the ability to easily understand any language, whether spoken or written.

The character is not related to the female cyborg of the same name who first appeared in Sabretooth and Mystique #1 and is a member of A.I.M.

Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Sal Buscema, the character first appeared in New Mutants #13 (March 1984).

Initially used as a supporting cast member, he was assimilated into the titular superteam in The New Mutants #21 (1984).

During his run as a member of the team, Cypher was the least popular of the New Mutants, as series writer Louise Simonson recounted: "He wasn't fun to draw. He just stood around and hid behind a tree during a fight... Every artist who ever did him said 'Can't we kill this guy?' We would get letters from fans about how much they hated him. We never got any letters from people saying they liked him until he was dead."

Cypher was killed in The New Mutants #60 (1988).

The story was acclaimed as one of the most touching moments in the series, and sparked a surge in popularity for the character.

Following his death, Cypher was frequently referenced, and even had a solo story in The New Mutants Annual #6 (1990), appearing as a ghost.

His tombstone appears as one of Magneto's most traumatic memories when psychically assaulted by Professor X and Jean Grey.

After the events of the Phalanx Covenant, a techno-organic being known as "Douglock" takes Cypher's form in Excalibur #78 (1994), but this being turns out to be Warlock infused with some of Cypher's memories.

The character was brought back to life during the 2009-2010 "Necrosha" storyline, and appeared regularly between New Mutants vol. 3 #5 (2009) through New mutants vol. 3 #50 (2012) and again in All-New X-Factor (2014-2015).

Doug Ramsey was born to Philip and Sheila Ramsey.

Doug became friends with Kitty Pryde, whom he met after she moved to Westchester County to join Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and with whom he shares an interest in video games, computers and computer technology.

Kitty's talent for building hardware complements Doug's skill at writing software.

Professor X suspected Doug possessed a mutant power, probably connected with communications, but did not approach him to join the school, perhaps feeling a passive power might go unnoticed.

Subsequently, Doug was offered a scholarship to attend Emma Frost's Massachusetts Academy.

He did not know at the time that Emma Frost was one of the X-Men's adversaries.

When Kitty Pryde accompanied him on his first trip to the Massachusetts Academy, she was captured, and later rescued by the New Mutants.

Though Doug's memory of the mutant related events was wiped by Frost, he does not accept the scholarship for reasons not elaborated on.

Doug became a member of the New Mutants after the arrival of the techno-organic alien Warlock, whose inability to communicate with the children requires them to seek out Doug to use his linguistic abilities.

In so doing, it is revealed to Doug that both he and they are mutants, and superheroes.

With Doug's predisposition for technology, and being more readily able to understand Warlock than most others, the two of them became fast friends.

Whereas Warlock referred to his teammates with the prefix "selfriend", eventually, after Doug saves his life by offering to share some of his own life energy with Warlock, Warlock gives Doug the unique identifier of "Selfsoulfriend".

Doug's mutant power is the ability to intuitively understand and translate any form of communication, be it written, spoken or non-verbal, and regardless of whether the origin of the language is human, computer or even completely alien.

His power is not related to his intellect, but it often allows him to make leaps of comprehension that he cannot explain to anyone else, but which are invariably accurate.

He was, for instance, able to translate the language of a long-dead species, without any common terms of reference, within a matter of hours.

An established hacker, he becomes the team's computer expert and researcher, writing programs for the X-Men's Danger Room.

Doug is the only one of the original New Mutants who never tells his parents he is a mutant, as he fears rejection.

Despite being instrumental in many of his team's successful missions, including those involving saving lives, Doug suffers from occasional feelings of inadequacy.

These feelings are driven by his lack of offensive power capabilities and the way Warlock often encapsulates him to provide defence in times of danger.

This is illustrated during a journey to Asgard, where he was defeated in combat by a serving maid.

Later, Warlock explains to Doug that they can perform a "self-merge" in which they merge the substance of their bodies to create a being with Doug's form but Warlock's techno-organic surface texture.

This allows them full access to both their powers, but runs a severe risk of irreversibly infecting Doug with the Transmode virus and turning him into a techno-organic being like Warlock.

Cypher used his abilities to discover a means of saving Lila Cheney's Dyson Sphere homebase from destruction.

When introduced, Doug was already close friends with Kitty Pryde.

Kitty was having issues both with the divorce of her parents and with her uncertain relationship with Piotr Rasputin, and Doug was there for her.

He was interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with her as evidenced by the illusion Emma Frost created to distract him, but Kitty was uncertain and eventually they decided to remain friends.

Cypher helped rescue Betsy Braddock from Mojo.