Early years Forge is a mutant with an innate superhuman talent for invention and is an
intuitive genius. He is a
Native American of the
Cheyenne nation. Despite being trained as a
medicine man, he primarily relies upon technology rather than
mysticism to accomplish his tasks. This causes conflict with his teacher, Naze, and ultimately leads him to leave and join the military. While in the army, Forge served in the
Vietnam War. After rising in the ranks to become a
sergeant, he was asked to join
S.H.I.E.L.D. Forge declines, seeing his need is in
Vietnam. During his second tour of duty in the war, his comrades are killed by enemy troops. In anger, he uses their spirits to summon a band of demons to destroy the opposition. Forge, concerned about his former comrades, decides to order a
B-52 bombing on his position to close the portal from the world of the unliving. The bombs destroy the spirits, but he is injured as well, losing his right leg and right hand. This action allows the demon called the
Adversary to come to Earth. After this, Forge is hesitant to employ his mystical abilities. Years later, Forge creates
cybernetic replacements for his lost limbs. When
Tony Stark stops making advanced weaponry for the
US government, Forge is hired as an employee of the
Defense Department. One of his earliest commissions is to design a weapon to detect the
Dire Wraiths. Subsequently, Forge constructs a device capable of neutralizing mutant powers.
Henry Peter Gyrich, an agent of the
National Security Council, takes the device, following orders from the
President.
Romance Forge rescues Storm after she falls into a river. Forge brings her back to his home in
Dallas,
Texas. During her recovery, romantic feelings develop between them. When she finds out he is the person who developed the device which removed her abilities, Storm leaves. With the help of
Rom the Space Knight, Forge creates a large-scale version of the Neutralizer and uses it to send the Dire Wraiths to
Limbo. After saving the world, Forge destroys all remaining Neutralizers and focuses on ridding the Earth of the Adversary. The Adversary, in the shape of Naze, convinces Storm that Forge was driven insane by her leaving and is planning to open a gate to hell. Storm tries to kill Forge, but the moment she stabs him she sees that she was tricked. During the events of the
Fall of the Mutants crossover, the Adversary banishes Storm and Forge to another dimension devoid of human life. Storm and Forge spend an unknown amount of time there, rekindling their romance. Forge restores Storm's abilities and uses them to power a gate back home.
X-Men Forge and Storm arrive on Earth and join the X-Men in their battle with the Adversary. Forge is required to sacrifice nine willing lives to banish the Adversary forever; eight X-Men and
Madelyne Pryor volunteer and die in the casting of Forge's spell. The goddess
Roma intervenes and secretly restores the X-Men to life.
Magik, younger sister of X-Man
Colossus, sees Forge as responsible for the death of her brother and attacks Forge, who fights back using his knowledge of Native American sorcery. Feeling guilty over his involvement, Forge allows Magik to stab him with her Soulsword in the hopes it will kill him. Instead, its effects cause both mutants to come to terms with their shortcomings.
Destiny Forge, still unaware of the X-Men's resurrection, fights alongside
Mystique's
Freedom Force and an interim team of X-Men against the group of villains, the
Reavers, at
Muir Island. Forge creates a rifle that deactivates the cyborg enemy
Skullbuster and forces the rest of the Reavers to retreat. During the battle,
Destiny is killed, but not before she foresees that Forge and Mystique will one day love one another, a fact that both parties find implausible. Mystique blames him for Destiny's death.
Banshee approaches Forge, acting on a lead given by
Polaris that the team is still alive. Forge is convinced by visions that those X-Men are still alive. The two of them plan to travel the world looking for their missing friends, starting with Storm in
Cairo,
Egypt, but their plane is ambushed by the
Fenris Twins. Later, Forge and Banshee go to the ruins of the Xavier Mansion (destroyed during the events of
Inferno) and rescue
Jean Grey from a gang of
Masque's
Morlocks. They finally learn that the X-Men are indeed alive, but they have faked their deaths. Forge and Banshee eventually find the X-Men and become full-time members.
End of romance After the events of the
Muir Island Saga, Forge becomes a member of the
X-Mansion's "support team". He redesigns the
Danger Room and the
Blackbird jet. With the arrival of
Bishop and Storm's constant involvement with the team, Forge and Storm's relationship becomes rocky. Forge leaves the X-Men after coming to believe Storm would have rejected his proposal of marriage. The pair continue to have an on-again, off-again relationship, until it ends completely. Forge returns home to Dallas to resume work as a government contractor and to help with the mental care of Mystique, who is becoming
schizophrenic. During her stay, Forge and Mystique grow closer and have an affair.
X-Factor Forge replaces
Valerie Cooper as the new government liaison for the mutant superhero team
X-Factor. Forge goes on his second cosmic adventure while with X-Factor, venturing to the far side of the sun with dozens of other superheroes in the incident known as the
Infinity Crusade. Forge is personally affected as one of his team,
Wolfsbane, is kidnapped by the villain the Goddess. Forge ends up orbiting a duplicate Earth in an escape pod, along with the vigilante
Nomad. When the team begins to experience personal problems, Forge takes a more active involvement, gradually become the leader of the remaining members. In this role, he sees the mutant criminals Mystique and
Sabretooth forced to become unwilling members of his team. Forge also comes to terms with his heritage when the Adversary returns. With Naze's assistance, Forge defeats the Adversary by combining technology created using his mutant powers with his mystical abilities. After X-Factor is tricked into hunting and battling former team member
Multiple Man, Forge severs the team's involvement with the government and leads them underground. Forge and Mystique become more attracted to one another while working together as members of the team, with Forge ultimately falling in love with Mystique. During their time underground, another former X-Factor member,
Strong Guy, awakens from a coma that he suffered due to his powers placing stress on his heart. Forge creates a device that saves Strong Guy's life. Forge and other team members are severely injured after Sabretooth betrays and attacks the team. Mystique escapes her forced membership while Forge is recuperating. After recovering from his injuries, Forge refuses to become a member of a new X-Factor line-up led by former team leader
Havok, as he feels that Havok is no longer trustworthy. This new version of X-Factor disbands shortly thereafter. For a time, Forge is not active on any mutant groups, though he briefly works as support staff at the X-Men's mansion.
Xavier's Underground Forge takes part in Xavier's Underground movement. He works with a former X-Factor member,
Multiple Man, in Genosha. Afterwards, Forge returns to the X-Men and briefly becomes a mentor to
Danielle Moonstar. Later,
Charles Xavier asks him for help in locating Mystique whom he needs for a clandestine mission. Forge also helps
Cannonball and
Siryn find
Cable with the aid of
Deadpool. Forge builds a pair of gauntlets for
New X-Men team member
Surge; afterward, he returns to his lab to build a
Nimrod unit with the primary objective of protecting mutants and secondary objective of protecting humans. He then encounters a time-traveling Nimrod suffering from severe damage which demands that Forge fix him. This version of Nimrod comes from an alternate future, and had compelled an alternate version of Forge (married to Storm, with two children) to build a device to allow it to travel to the past. The alternate Forge had seemingly complied, but actually built a device to send Nimrod not only back in time, but also to another timeline, and to disable him upon arrival. Nimrod threatens to harm this reality's Storm, and Forge offers to transfer Nimrod into his own version of the Sentinel, to which Nimrod agrees. The transfer is interrupted by the arrival of Surge and the rest of the New X-Men, who had received Forge's distress call through Surge's own gauntlets; in the ensuing battle, Forge helps them defeat Nimrod.
Messiah Complex After Forge sends Jamie Madrox and
Layla to the future, he goes on a mission at
Cyclops' behest to rendezvous with the other X-Men, who are on their way to confront Sinister's forces. He is shot by a seemingly treacherous Bishop. He is seen later in the recovery room along with other injured X-Men.
Divided We Stand Forge suffers an array of injuries, including serious head trauma, from Bishop's attack during his mad quest to murder the first mutant child following
M-Day. Bishop steals several time travel devices that Forge is
reverse engineering. Throughout his recovery, Forge is obsessed with recreating his notes and research on these devices. Fixated to an unhealthy degree on this project, Forge shuts himself away in his home at Eagle Plaza to devote all his time to this work. However, before he begins, he enhances his home's defense systems to ensure that he never falls victim to such an attack again.
Ghost Box Forge returns in
Astonishing X-Men #29, when the X-Men fly to his complex on
Mount Wundagore to confront him about his apparent role in an inter-dimensional invasion of Earth. After following a trail of mysteriously genetically created mutants and death, the X-Men track down Forge, who reveals his madness. He wants to save the world from the Annexation, an invasion from a parallel world on the other side of the Ghost Box, the trans-dimensional teleporter. He plans to send the X-Men to the parallel universe that is home to the Ghost Boxes to destroy them before the Annexation begins. The X-Men try to talk Forge down, but he rebukes them and forcibly opens the Ghost Box, risking all life on Earth. Thanks to the assistance of
Abigail Brand and
Beast, a laser is shot into the opening of the Ghost Box. Before everything is destroyed, Ororo offers Forge a chance to come back with them. A bitter Forge rejects her offer, and stays in his complex as it is destroyed.
Cable and X-Force As part of
Marvel NOW!, Forge is shown to still be alive following the destruction of his complex. He has apparently restored his original right hand (but still uses a prosthetic for his right leg). Forge is approached by
Cable (after he used his telepathic abilities to help cure Forge of insanity) to be in a new
X-Force team created by Cable.
All-New, All-Different Marvel As part of the
All-New, All-Different Marvel, Forge appears as a member of Storm's X-Men as their primary technician even though his relationship with Storm is awkward and strained. Forge programmed
Cerebra into the body of a Sentinel with the capability to showcase human emotion and the ability to teleport along with mutant detection so she could be a bridge between Earth and Limbo.
Dawn of X Professor X tasks Forge with modifying
Cerebro so it can store backups for mutant minds. Forge would later assist the
Marauders with recovering his mutant power Neutralizers after they were co-opted by the Russians. In
Destiny of X, Forge is selected to be part of the new X-Men team during the second
Hellfire Gala. ==Powers and abilities==