I mentioned last time that Fire
manipulation is a pretty common superpower. Another is animal characteristics.
Strength of a bear, speed of a cheetah, senses of a bird of prey, spider
clinging and silk weaving, and so on. I won’t list off a bunch of those, since
you probably can think of a half dozen examples of animal powered heroes and
villains on your own. Usually, these kinds of powers would be cool regardless of
what you get. But then you’ve got someone that’s stuck with a negative aspect
of the animal that they have powers akin to, such as with out next character,
Mortimer Toynbee aka Toad. Let’s get to it.
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| The one time he's a competent threat is also the one time he's played by the same actor as the best character of the Prequel Star Wars movies. Coincidence? I think not. |
Morty was born and raised in York,
England. He was abandoned by his parents before he was old enough to walk and
spent years in an orphanage. He was relentlessly bullied by the other kids for his
less than pleasant appearance. Like Beast and Nightcrawler, even before his
powers fully manifested, he had a slightly physical deformities that hinted at
his later abilities. He walked with a hunch, had gangly limbs and a squashed face.
Not only that, but he had some unspecified learning disability that made school
difficult for him, so he was thought to be stupid as well as ugly. Not a fun combo.
He dropped out of school before getting out of primary school and fended for himself
on the street. Shockingly, his physical abnormalities coupled with the years of
abuse gave the poor guy a pretty severe inferiority complex, and he basically worshipped
anyone that showed him the slightest bit of kindness. It sucks that the first
person to really do that was Max Eisenhardt, aka Magneto.
He devoted himself to pleasing
Magneto, believing that the master of magnetism loved and appreciated him like
a son. In truth, Magneto really just tolerated his Toady. I’m not apologizing for
the pun. He also did his best to woo teammate and Magneto’s then unknowing
daughter Scarlet Witch. She was completely uninterested as he was gross,
sycophantly devoted to Magneto, and ugly. Can’t really blame Wanda for rejecting
him, just saying. He served Magneto for years, suffering his abuse when Morty
failed him. The change in their master servant relationship occurred when they
were kidnapped by an alien calling itself the Stranger. The alien being, with
powers on par with Galactus, nabbed them both to study. Magneto flew the coop
once by using his powers to repair a smaller vessel that the Stranger had, but
he ditched Toad. He was recaptured, and the second time he and Toad escaped
together. Toad had realized in this endeavor that he fell low on his master’s
priority list. He fled along with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch when they
decided to quit dad’s team.
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| Kind of blows my mind that he was in comics for forty years before getting that tongue. |
Afterwards, Morty tried his best to
run a solo villain career. He used technology he stole from the Stranger to
make a man with amphibian-based powers more threatening. Unfortunately, his
career was fraught with mistakes, setbacks and more mistakes. Along the way he realized
that he was too depended on others to ever work solo. He developed depression
and suicidal tendencies after that realization, a mental illness he’s dealt
with for decades. In order to combat his shortcomings, he created his own
version of the Brotherhood, which included Blob, Pyro, Sauron, and a new mutant
named Phantazia. His version of the Brotherhood battled the X-Men branch team
X-Factor on several occasions, but were repeatedly defeated.
Toad was forcibly recruited by an
advanced alien AI called Prosh to stop a plot by his old foe the Stranger.
Mystique, Juggernaut, Iceman and Jean Grey were also recruited to help. They
had to jump to different points in the X-Men timeline in order to stop him. Along
the way, they came across the Black Womb Project. It was a secret government project
to research genetics and Mutants. The project’s staff included Xavier and
Juggernaut’s fathers, and was run by one of Mister Sinister’s aliases. They
witnessed an embryo that they determined to be a developing Toad to be deemed
unfit for the project due to genetic flaws. They took the time to correct these
imperfections, which caused current Toad to go through a metamorphosis. He grew
taller, not that you could tell much given his love of crouching, slimmer, and
his powers got a noticeable boost. Jump higher, fight harder, that sort of
thin. It also caused him to develop his signature prehensile tongue. Yeah, Toad
went YEARS without having the distinguishing characteristics of Frogs and
Toads. Weird. He helped defeat the Stranger, but he amscrayed when they got
back to their own time.
In the years following M-Day, Toad
did his best to mend his ways. He worked with the X-Men on several occasions
defending the Mutant nation of Utopia. He tried to take it over after a few
years, so it didn’t work out super well. He went on to work for Wolverine at
his new Mutant School, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning… as a janitor. Eh,
he’d never get a teaching degree without at least a GED anyway. Unfortunately,
Toad went back to villainy a few years later. Dude can’t seem to mend his ways.
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| This is one of the things I hated about the X-Men movies. Toad got a poster, like he was going to be a big deal. But is only in it for a five minute cameo. Stupid! |
Toad has a number of superhuman powers
related to his namesake. He can leap upwards up to 25 feet, or forward about 37
feet. He can kick with superhuman force. His bones are incredibly flexible, allowing
him to bend and contort without hurting his back. It’s also how he can crouch
on all four’s for hours at a time without spinal damage. He’s got superhuman
stamina, agility, endurance and reflexes. He’s got a minor healing factor,
which lets him recover from most injuries in a relatively short time. And allow
his tongue to grow back if it’s ever cut. Which has happened. He can see into
the UV and infrared spectrum, but this has left his eyes super sensitive to
light, requiring him to wear glasses or goggles in daylight. He’s got a
prehensile tongue that can shoot up to 30 feet. His tongue can hit with
superhuman force, enough to dent steel, and can lift a ton. He can secrete an
acidic saliva that can dissolve most material with relative ease and a resin
that lets him stick to surfaces and paralyze individuals if touched. His more
recent mutations have turned his skin green and give him a more amphibians
look.
Of the Brotherhood of Mutants’ characters,
I’ve covered this week, Toad is for some reason the most popular. Or, maybe it’s
more accurate to say that he’s more consistently used. He’s at least had one
appearance in every X-Men related series since the X-Men animated series of the
90s.
He had only a single appearance in X-Men:
The Animated Series. He was the number two of a villain named Solarr, as part
of a cowboy movie plot. No, seriously, Solarr and his crew were forcing a town to
harvest gold for them from a nearby mine. The only real difference is that
Solarr and the entire town have superpowers. The status quo was only interrupted
by Cyclops, who’d come to town looking for a doctor that had helped him with
his eye issues when he was younger and whom he’d later befriended. He’s beaten
and arrested along with the rest of Solarr’s goons when the towns folk rises
up, due in part of Cyclops being a noble, near suicidal hero, even without his
eyebeams.
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| This version of Toad really just needs to brush his teeth, shower significantly more than once a month and hide the fact he's constantly hacking up mucus to seem normal. No one suggested that? |
Like Avalanche, Toad appears in X-Men:
Evolution but he’s heavily altered for the series. In this one he’s known as
Todd Tolansky, but I think just about everyone refers to him as Toad, and is a
teenager. He’s introduced in the first episode, Strategy X. He’s picking
pockets at a high school football game when a group of players decide to beat him
up for it. Scott Summers, also a teen, steps in to protect him, but accidentally blows a propane tank during the scuffle. Toad scampers, but thanks Scott for
helping him. He’s approached a few days later by Principal Raven Darkholme, who
recruits him as her first Brotherhood member and tries to implant him as a spy at
the X-Mansion. He tries to slip in under the cover of darkness, but encounters
Storm whom knocks him around with her weather powers, and then Nightcrawler.
The two more feral moving Mutants fight across the mansion, but end up in the
Danger Room. The training room’s many traps and weapons horrifies Toad, whom scampers.
When he reports back to Mystique, it’s clear his memory was all but entirely wiped
of what happened after Storm blasted him. He remains with the Brotherhood through
it’s entire run, usually being the brunt of many a “Gross Toad” joke. He and
Blob seem to be particularly close, as they’re both kind of gross. In season
two, he develops an obvious crush on Pietro’s sister and their new teammate Wanda,
but the Scarlet Witch isn’t interested. You know, because he is gross. He sides
with the rest of the Brotherhood when Avalanche says they want to stay out of
Apocalypse’s way, but joins in when the group goes to back up Wanda as she
fought her mind-controlled dad, Magneto. He has a pretty good line about them having
to steal a jet, get lost, but still had time to arrive and save the day. In Xavier’s
epilogue vision, he’s shown to be part of SHIELD’s Freedom Force along with the
rest of the original Brotherhood plus Pyro.
He’s a minor character in Wolverine
and the X-Men. His main ‘thing’ is that he’s been arrested several times by
the Mutant Response Division, to the point after one capture, team lead
Quicksilver contemplates leaving him in prison rather then break him out again.
This version of Toad has dreadlocks and rocks a headband. Because reasons.
Toad appears in 2000’s X-Men,
portrayed by Ray Park. Whom also played Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. He
helps Sabertooth and Magneto kidnap Rogue from a train station near the film’s
climax. Showing to be way more competent then normal, this version of Toad is
able to subdue Cyclops, Jean and Storm almost singlehandedly. He locked Cyclops
in a display case, knocks Storm into an elevator and sends her to a different
floor, and slimes Jean in the face when she tries to stop him with her powers.
Storm comes back in, though, and strikes him with lighting, knocking him into
the Hudson and probably killing him. At least, we never see Toad again… which
might just mean they couldn’t get Ray Park back again but… yeah…
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| Kind of nuts that the green skin look is an upgrade, isn't it? |
Ray Park’s version of Toad must
have been particularly popular, as this was around when the comic version of
him was redesigned, more to match Park’s character, and nearly all animated
versions of him keep to a similar look. Less Quasimodo ugly, and more green
skin ugly.
He appears in the sequel/soft reboot
Days of Future Past. He was an American GI along with Alex Summers. They’re
nearly arrested as part of Bolivar Trask’s anti-mutant agenda, but are saved by
Mystique. He’s shown working at a diner during the film’s climax while Magneto
is giving an impassioned speech. Question… why would you hire Toad for food preparation?
Toad is a character that’s fun to
hate. He’s a toady in every sense of the word, kissing up to people more powerful
than him and parroting their beliefs. He’s gross, obviously, but he has been
shown to be capable of pretty serious changes when given a chance. He was more
or less a good, or at least neutral, character for years before a series of
personal problems caused him to switch teams again. I personally can’t help but
feel a little bad for the guy. It’s hard not to feel for a guy whose life
problems could pretty easily be traced back to being abandoned as a kid and not
being given the tools to succeed in life. His powers are pretty useful. Like you
don’t think having the powers of a Toad would be useful, until you see him
leaping around at high speed, crush rocks with his kicks or tongue, and scale a
building with his slime. Hm… I wonder how much of Toad was an inspiration for
Tsuyu Asui from My Hero Academia… it probably would be a lot more
obvious if Kohei Horikoshi had stuck with his original idea of her being a
dude. I’m getting off task. Toad, he’s gross and fun to hate, but like many an X-Men
villain he’s capable of being good if given the chance. Sums up Morty nicely.
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