| Character Name: | Bastion |
| Real Name: | Sebastion Gilberti |
| Species: | Android |
| Publisher: | Marvel Comics |
| Debut: | X-Men #52 (May 1996) |
| Creators: | Scott Lobdell Pascual Ferry |
| Alliances: | Purifiers Friends of Humanity Humanity's Last Stand |
| Aliases: | Master Mold, Nimrod, Arnold Rodriguez, Template, The Oracle |
| Powers: | A mystical fusion of Master Mold and Nimrod;
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Bastion is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Scott Lobdell and Pascual Ferry, and first made a cameo appearance in X-Men #52 (May 1996) while his first full appearance was in The Uncanny X-Men #333 (June 1996).[1]
See main article: Operation: Zero Tolerance. Bastion is introduced as Sebastion Gilberti, a mysterious man who had risen to power in a relatively short time in the U.S. Government and began assembling the international anti-mutant strike force (OZT). When the X-Men learned about the existence of OZT some months before the operation became public, Jean Grey and Gambit (acting on information) snuck into an OZT meeting being held at the Pentagon to learn more about the program and its leader Bastion, but did not come out with much. Jean could not read Bastion's mind, but he easily identified the two X-Men hidden among representatives of various foreign intelligence agencies interested in supporting OZT.[2]
When Professor X voluntarily turned himself in after the Onslaught event, Bastion confined Professor X in an OZT facility along with the artificially-created mutant Mannites, taking control of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. It also allowed Bastion to gain possession of the Xavier Protocols, a list of files containing information on killing the X-Men. Bastion also killed Daily Bugle reporter Nick Bandouveris who was going to report on Graydon Creed's history[3] and later Bastion himself succeeded in capturing Jubilee to take to the OZT base in New Mexico.[4]
As the OZT attempted to reconfigure the Sentinel force assembled by Project: Wideawake, Bastion deemed most of them outdated. Instead, Bastion was able to develop a new type of Sentinel called the Prime Sentinels. Graydon's death[5] was the last ammunition needed to initiate Bastion's OZT, which attacked mutants everywhere. The operation soon targeted and succeeded in capturing some members of the X-Men.[6] [7]
Bastion also tried to buy off J. Jonah Jameson directly with all the available information he had managed to gather and decrypt on the outlaw X-Men and their associates. However, Jameson revealed that he had already been working on his own story for quite some time and invited Bastion to see what he had so far. When Bastion saw nothing, Jameson pointed out that Bastion had managed to ingratiate, intimidate, and dominate his way into a position of power in over a dozen countries. Yet there was no evidence of his existence. To Jameson, this meant the greatest story to follow was Bastion himself. He also implied that Bastion was behind the disappearance of Bandouveris and this meant Bastion would kill to keep his secrets. Jameson then burned the data disk and ordered Bastion out of his office, warning that he would see Bastion charged with Nick's murder.[8]
After learning of the Prime Sentinels' nature, the President was convinced by Senator Robert Kelly and Henry Peter Gyrich to suspend Bastion's operations. Bastion was captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., with help from Iceman.[9]
While in government custody, more mysteries surrounding Bastion were discovered, but before a further investigation could be made, he managed to escape and return to the home of his mother figure Rose Gilberti. After the authorities accidentally killed Rose, Bastion flew into a rage and returned to the former OZT facility. There he found Cable fighting Machine Man who had lost touch with humanity. Bastion made contact with the version of Master Mold that helped created the Prime Sentinels and drained the unit's energy which transformed him into a unit resembling Nimrod.[10]
This transformation allowed Bastion's memories to be unblocked, revealing that he had not been born human at all and instead was originally two separate beings: the lead Sentinel Master Mold and the highly advanced Sentinel Nimrod from an alternate future. A fused Sentinel where Master Mold's programming co-opted Nimrod's had a conflict with the X-Men, ultimately resulting in the X-Man Rogue using the Siege Perilous which was capable of judging any who pass through it and reincarnating into a new life commensurate in quality with their previous life. The merging of the two Sentinels into a single being with no memory of his past, Bastion was eventually found by Rose who took him in and taught him human kindness. Bastion began to hear about America's mutant problem and his mutant-termination directives were re-activated. He abandoned Rose and sought out the high-profile Friends of Humanity. After regaining his identity as a Sentinel, Bastion attempted to lead another crusade against mutants by turning Machine Man into a Sentinel Supreme, but Machine Man and Cable were able to defeat him.[11] He was returned to government custody, only to be killed by Apocalypse's Horseman of Death.[12]
Bastion's remains were eventually found by former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Mainspring who headed a project called the Gatekeepers, whose goal is to study and destroy Phalanx technology. Bastion was, however, able to co-opt and integrate itself with one of the Gatekeeper's bodies and used it to attack the techno-organic hero Warlock and his allies, being eventually defeated.[13] Mainspring was able to strip away the layers of Bastion's 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 into Template.[14] 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 and Wolfsbane managed to destroy the Babel Spire.[15]
Sometime later, Carol Danvers contacted the X-Men about the current whereabouts of the remains of Bastion/Template. The X-Men sent Shadowcat, Wolverine and Gambit to break into the government facility, intending to reclaim their stolen computer files. While there, Template showed the three X-Men false holograms of events and lies about their teammates. The X-Men eventually got their files, but they were left with doubts and fears about their teammates.[16]
Following the events of the Messiah Complex event, the fundamentalist Purifiers assaulted a heavily defended S.H.I.E.L.D. installation, breaching the tight security with the aid of several double agents within the organization and recovered Bastion's head. At one of their churches, the Purifiers attached the head to the body of the Nimrod unit recovered from Forge's Aerie, returning Bastion to life. Immediately after his activation, the mutant-hunting robot alerts the Purifiers to the presence of the new X-Force.[17] After accessing Nimrod's database, Bastion concludes that the X-Men are the greatest mutant threat to the Purifiers' objectives in this timeline or any other and that there is no terrestrial force in existence that could guarantee the elimination of the X-Men. However, he reveals that he has found something that could: Magus.[18]
It was later revealed that what Bastion discovered at the bottom of the ocean was not the real Magus, but one of his offspring in a mindless state. Bastion rewrote its programming and infected Donald Pierce and the Leper Queen, the recovered techno-organic remains of Cameron Hodge and Steven Lang, as well as the corpses of Bolivar Trask, Creed, and Reverend William Stryker with the Technarch transmode virus, declaring them to be the future of humanity and the end of mutantkind.[19]
His first move was to capture several mutants and inject them with a strain of the Legacy Virus to cause their powers to go berserk and kill themselves and thousands of humans. This would compel the United Nations to form a Mutant Response Division, which is successful, despite X-Force's efforts.[20]
Bastion also had Pierce act as his mole inside the X-Men's headquarters, all the while building several structures that surround Utopia.[21]
During the "Dark Reign" storyline, Quasimodo analyzed Bastion for Norman Osborn. While claiming that Bastion's current programming makes him difficult to sway, Quasimodo states that would be a beneficiary tool if they can find a way to bypass his Prime Director.[22]
See main article: X-Men: Second Coming. Bastion is the primary antagonist in the X-Men: Second Coming storyline. He is seen with Lang, Hodge, Trask, Stryker and Creed, stating that their forces are assembled and at his disposal. Bastion tells them that the Mutant Messiah has returned and gives them orders to kill.[23] Later, Bastion attempts to kill Hope on his own, but he is confronted by Rogue and then severely damaged when Nightcrawler sacrifices himself. When rebooting, Bastion takes on much of Nimrod's old appearance, but is finally destroyed when Hope manifests a variety of the current X-Men's mutant powers and obliterates him.[24]
Despite his apparent destruction, Bastion had survived the attack by activating, at the last second, his temporal drives and shunted himself into the future. However, Bastion had suffered catastrophic damage from Hope's assault and the time-shift had corrupted and compromised his systems. Arriving when mutants were being faced with extinction due to the Terrigenesis cloud, Bastion decided to re-dedicate himself to protecting mutants, assembling, and reprogramming a wave of standard sentinels. He eventually returned to the present and was soon confronted by the time-displaced X-Men which confirm that Bastion's actual goal is simply to preserve mutants until their population rises to a level where he can destroy them all himself. The team try to fight him but Bastion instead just left them and retreat with his Sentinels.[25]
In the aftermath of Hydra takeover of the United States of America under the leadership of the Cosmic Cube-altered Captain America, Bastion seemingly started to work with Miss Sinister, Emma Frost and Havok to use Mothervine on a global scale.[26] Bastion went with Havok to take control of an army of Prime Sentinels; since his programming was unrecognizable by them, they identified him as a threat despite his role in their creation. Bastion continued to survey the development and growth of the Mothervine to continue mutant repopulation, much to the chagrin of Frost.[27] After Sebastian Shaw failed in his attempt to kill Magneto to gain a role in the Mothervine plot, Bastion was present to negotiate with and later fight the Master of Magnetism, simultaneously unleashing a wave of Prime Sentinels to finally release Mothervine under Havok's order; Magneto was able to escape by using a vial of Mutant Growth Hormone and throwing a lighthouse at the group, fleeing in the chaos.[28]
Thanks to Bastion's efforts, both humans and mutants began to experience accelerated mutations through exposure to the Mothervine.[29] A group of mutants, led by Polaris, managed to infiltrate the Mothervine group's hideout once Mothervine was already active, with Bastion detecting their presence and alerting the rest of the group; Bastion incapacitated the daughter of Magneto when Polaris refused Havok's offer to join them, and they were imprisoned as a result.[30] The traitorous Frost, disillusioned by the Mothervine plot, freed Polaris and her team after overseeing an experiment by Miss Sinister on Jimmy Hudson, and they made their way to the inner circle's meeting room. At this point, Magneto had discovered the mutant Elixir who was capable of reversing the Mothervine mutations and was taken across the world to stop the rampancy, to the notice of Havok and Bastion. Emma and Polaris managed to break into their meeting, and Bastion began fighting them off. Ultimately, he was caught off-guard by the arrival of Xorn who absorbed him into a wormhole and seemingly destroyed them both.[31]