The five Tao-Yu brothers are Chinese farmers who were taken into government custody after their mutant abilities manifested and trained to be government agents. The Collective Man is first seen in the
Grandmaster's contest, in which various international superheroes battle as the proxies of either the Grandmaster or his opponent
Death. The Collective Man is teamed with
Storm and
Shamrock (all unknowingly proxies of Death) in battle against the Grandmaster's proxies
Captain America,
Sasquatch and
Blitzkrieger; their battle ends when Shamrock claims the prize. Some time after the contest, the Collective Man battles the
Hulk. At some point, the brothers' power decrease so that they only possess the abilities of five men as the Collective Man. When their superiors in the Chinese military prevent them from visiting their dying mother, Mary, the brothers rebel and battle the god Ho-Ti, who is apparently working with the government. However, Ho-Ti sees the futility of the battle and surrendered. After the brothers discover how China has mistreated mutants, they join the revolutionary group 3-Peace to fight the
Mutant Liberation Front and the nationalistic China Force. Later, the Collective Man, now restored to full power, is mystically altered by the fallen god
Marduk, who sought to use the Tao-Yu brothers' power to steal the life energy of every person in China in order to reclaim his divinity. The process of absorbing this life energy transforms Collective Man into a raging giant.
Citizen V and his
V-Battalion battle the Collective Man, with the Battalion agent
Goldfire accidentally dying in the battle. Citizen V punctures Collective Man's skin, causing him to explode and apparently die. He survives and the brothers return to their normal form, now gaining the ability to increase size when merged and to generate additional duplicate bodies. The Collective Man later battles the
X-Men on behalf of the Chinese government when the mutant heroes attempt to free
Shen Xorn from Chinese custody. It is revealed that the brothers retained their powers following
M-Day, when the
Scarlet Witch removed the powers of most mutants on Earth. They have since been spotted on the Xavier institute as part of
the 198, a loose alliance of the remaining mutants. The Collective Man, as part of China's version of the
People's Defense Force, join
the Mighty Avengers and other assembled
Avengers teams in defeating
the Unspoken, an exiled
Inhuman king seeking to enslave the Earth. Months later, the Collective Man invades
San Francisco's organized crime circuit while its protector, Wolverine is incapacitated by a "mutant flu" bioweapon. He is defeated by a group of "substitute" X-Men consisting of
Angel,
Storm,
Dazzler,
Pixie, and
Northstar. Collective Man and the People's Defense Force meet
Crystal and her team of All-New
Inhumans as they investigate a mysterious skyspear in China. The skyspear causes him to lose his powers and split into his quintuplet form.
Flint, not aware that he is depowered, attacks and nearly kills one of the brothers. Collective Man later represents the Chinese government and attends
Black Panther's meeting in the Eden Room of Avengers Mountain. ==Powers and abilities==